Almost No Reservations: Restaurants that Play Hard to Get

Jose Andres' newest endeavoré, has been getting glowing reviewsfor the James Beard award winner's creations, like a Norwegian lobster served with rose-scented "air" or the succulent Iberico ham topped with earthy black truffles. But snagging a reservation to try the $250 all-inclusive tasting menu at the diminutive Vegas eatery (which is tucked inside Jaleo, Andres' larger tapas and paella restaurant) is no easy feat. With only eight seats and a mere ten available seatings per week, é, which only accepts reservations by email, is poised to become one of the nation's toughest tables to book.

In honor of the new uber-exclusive é, we present a round-up of restaurants around the country known for playing hard to get:

Nabbing one of the twelve seats at David Chang's two-Michelin-star-rated Momofuku Ko requires dedication, persistence, and a little dumb luck. Reservations to try the regularly rotating lunch and dinner tasting menus (which currently go for $175 and $125, respectively) are only available online and are released a week in advance. To snag a seat, Momofuku devotees log on with a username and password each morning when the system opens at 10 AM, where they are greeted with a schedule of time slots, marked with either a green check for an available seat or a red X for unavailable. Time it exactly right and click on the green check to grab what — after almost three years — is still one of the hottest tables in town.

By day the homey Talula's Table is a gourmet market, selling artisan cheeses, charcuterie, and housemade pastries. But by night the unassuming Talula's becomes one of the most exclusive restaurants in the country. To sidle up to the 12-top pinewood table for chef Bryan Sikora's seasonal eight-course "Farmtable Dinner," dedicated diners must call exactly 365 days in advance — and early. The reservation line open at 7 AM sharp, and those twelve seats go fast.

Chef Jose Andres makes the list twice more with mini bar and Saam, which, like é, are hidden away in larger restaurants. D.C.'s mini bar earns its name with only six seats, which are released a month in advance at 10 AM and are available only by telephone reservation. Your odds of sampling the 20-course menu at the larger Saam (just under 40 seats), the chef's tasting room in Andres' Bazaar restaurant, are better, but since Saam only serves three days a week, it's still a pretty tough table to nab.

The menu, the atmosphere, and even the physical location change for each incarnation of wily French chef Ludo Lefebvre's guerilla-style pop-up restaurant LudoBites. But with each round of LudoBites, which wrapped-up its sixth stint in September, one thing remains the same — reservations are near impossible to get. Angelinos vying for a chance to sample Lefebvre's inventive creations — like poached foie gras in miso broth or a cheese cupcake with chicken liver and ham mousse — book tables within minutes of release. During LudoBites 5.0 and 6.0, the mad rush reservations even crashed its page on Open Table.

As its website gloats, yearlong waits for one of the ten tables at New York's classic red sauce Italian eatery are the norm. With a single nightly seating and regulars who practically own their tables ("like condominiums," says the Rao's site), the closest most of us will get to a taste of the famous gravy is by buying the restaurant's line of pastas and sauces at the grocery store.

Probably the nation's most famous tough reservation, French Laundry has been eliciting frustrated sighs in covetous culinary travelers almost since Thomas Keller bought the restaurant in 1994. Though reservations are available on Open Table and are consistently released 60 days in advance of the dining date, with only 16 tables and epic 9-course tasting menu seatings, the three-Michelin star Napa Valley favorite remains a consistently difficult reservation to nab.

This roving "restaurant" travels around the country, setting its table at farms, ranches, beaches, and mountaintops, to serve a specially designed menu highlighting the meats and produce of its temporary home. The dinners are one or two nights only and often feature the culinary creations of local star chefs. The tour dates are released in the Spring, and reservations for the five-course meals are booked almost immediately. Interested diners can subscribe to OITF's mailing list to get a reminder that reservation season is right around the corner.

Have you ever tried your luck at snagging a coveted reservation? How'd it go? We want to hear about it.

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